There are many circumstances in which multiple computational machines (sometimes called computers) on the same local area network (LAN) need the same specific data file (e.g., a printer driver, a dll, etc.), the same software application, or the same update to a software application. Data transfers currently make heavy use of both hardware (distributed file servers) and wide area network (WAN) bandwidth, for example, by having each computation machine on the local area network separately obtain a copy of the same application or update from a resource external to the local area network. It would beneficial to have a more efficient data transfer mechanism than the current practice.